I don’t believe there are more than 10 people on this planet who are really qualified to put together a “Top-10 World Music Albums of 2007” list and I’m certainly not one of them. The people who run the National Geographic World Music site are collectively pretty qualified though and since I like most of their choices, here’s what they had in their year-end newsletter. Some of these we reviewed in Perceptive Travel–three of them in the same issue–so I’ve got links to the reviews where applicable. At the National Geographic site linked above, you can go hear samples and streaming radio.
1. Andy Palacio “Watina” (Belize) – In heavy rotation on my stereo this year.
2. Manu Chao “La Radiolina” (France/Spain) I tried to like this but couldn’t. Apparently I didn’t study the lyric sheet enough.
3. Angelique Kidjo “Djin Djin” (Benin/France) – I am reviewing this one in the January issue of Perceptive Travel.
4. Ojos de Brujo “Techari” (Spain) For me, this was the most interesting album of the year.
5. Spanish Harlem Orchestra “United We Swing” (USA)
6. Habib Koite “Afriki” (Mali)
7. CeU “CeU” (Brazil)
Except for maybe Andy Palacio’s, the album I actually listened to the most: works for car, home, office, and Starbucks.
8. Mickey Hart & Zakir Hussain “Global Drum Project” (USA)
9. Ricardo Lemvo “Isabela” (Congo)
10. Bole2Harlem “Bole2Harlem” (Ethiopia/USA)
Although some of my favorite world music albums of the year are above, I would add a few that were not on this list as being notable.
Gaudi and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan “Dub Qawwali” (England/Pakistan)
Tiniwaren “Aman Iman/Water is Life” (Algeria)
Putumayo Presents: Gypsy Groove (Various) Not one for the purists I suppose, but loads of fun. For an album’s worth of Gypsy punk, check out Gogol Bordello, which sounds like “the Pogues go to Romania.”
Backspin: a Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project (Various). Karsh Kale does the Police, MIDIval PunditZ does Led Zeppelin, Ojos de Brujo does Bob Marley, and others take a stab at Hendrix, ABBA, the Beach Boys, and Herbie Hancock. Nuff said.
Don’t stop here though. 2007 was a fantastic year for world music. Go get some:
Amazon downloads
Amazon International Music CDs
